MikeOK

In the April issue of MBA, there is a freeride article with some good news, and it follows what I have been hearing from the local forest service people. I will snip out what's not applicable to this issue:

"snip...Armed with the wilderness act and custom-made legislation, groups like the Sierra Club were steamrolling across public lands in a sucessful bid to ban all user groups that they deemed dangerous or unworthy... snip. Wilderness and anti-recreation groups have badgered land managers and politicians continuously for two decades. With each successive trip to the bargaining table, their list of demands and proposed restrictions grew larger until local and federal agencies finally had enough. From the federal to the local level, they are sick and tired of being bullied by zealot-filled environmental groups and are beginning to refuse their draconian demands."

Sweet. It's not so bad here in the south central than it is in other places. This has been something I have watched ever since me and a friend pulled into a park office in Vale, CO. We stopped to ask where the best trails were, and the lady that greeted us looked down her snoot and said "this is a wilderness area, you can only go in these mountains on foot", like we were lower class citizens because we rode bikes (I have to admit, we probably did look like lower class citizens hehe). Also, last year I got to know several local land managers while getting a road easement to some property I own through federal land. They pretty much sounded like this article, only their hands are tied by red tape and regulations that serve no purpose whatsoever, but to keep their jobs they have to comply even when they don't agree.